3.13.2010

For Kathy

Well, actually it's for Laura and Chris. I finally got them their wedding gift (only 5 months late). I think it may have been worth the wait if you ask me. I'd been trying for months to think of something special for L and C. It came to me when I got an e-mail from Snapfish about wrapped canvases being on sale. I've always thought wrapped canvas photographs were awesome so I checked it out. Even on sale, they were a little more than I could afford. I got to thinking that I could probably make a wrapped photo canvas myself with a little work.So I started digging around the internet and got some ideas. I headed over to Michael's where I picked up some iron on transfer paper you can run through your ink jet printer.

Then I went on over to Joann's and purchased a yard of duck cloth. It's sort of like canvas, but not quite as thick.The last thing I needed was a frame to wrap the picture around. I poked around while at Michael's and Joann's but wasn't willing to pay $5 for a frame that wasn't the exact right size. That's when I went on over to The Home Depot. I bought a 2x1 that was around 6 feet long for 62 cents.At this point I needed to figure out the photo (I actually ended up doing 3!) I wanted to use so I would know how big to make the frame. I looked at my pictures from the wedding and picked out 2 that I loved. I decided to make a third frame for a monogram I created with Word.

I don't own a saw, so I went to my parents' house and borrowed theirs. My dad couldn't find his miter saw, so my first attempt to make a frame was with a regular hand saw. This proved to work, but took forever to do one piece!

That's when I brought in the circular saw. It was slightly difficult to keep at the 45 degree angle I needed, but nothing some rasping and sanding couldn't fix. I got all my pieces cut in no time at all (plus a few extras just in case).

I found a square and started to piece together the different pieces. I roughly fit them all together to form 3 frames. I labeled each piece with a number and letter so that it would be easy to put them back together when I got home. I brought the square with me and used it to help make sure my frames would be good. I got out my handy staple gun and attached the frames.

After the frames were done, I got to printing out my photos. I had a few that didn't turn out so well, but I ended up with three transfers ready to be ironed on. It should be noted that the prints had to be a mirror image so that when they where ironed on they would be the correct direction. I definitely wasted one transfer by forgetting to do that.

Once they photos were printed and dried, I got out the duck cloth and ironed out the wrinkles. p.s. I had the iron on for this picture and took too long to take it. I was left with a nice burned in iron print that I had to cut off and throw away. Oops!

I carefully set my new transfers down and went to work with the iron. The hardest part was letting them cool down before peeling off the paper (and keeping the cat from pouncing on everything since I was working on the floor)!

Once cooled, I peeled back the paper and revealed 3 awesome photo canvases. At this point all that was left to do was wrap them around the frames. This was really easy actually. I pin tucked and folded in the corners, stapled them down, and they were done!

This was a really fun project and very budget friendly. Here's the breakdown.Photos - free, I took themIron-on transfers - $4 with my 40% off couponWood for frames - $.62Duck cloth - $4 for the yard (this could have been even cheaper, but I forgot my coupon)Tools - free, my dad owned the saw and I owned the staple gun

There you have it. 3 sweet photo wrapped canvases all for under $10! I will absolutely do this again.

Scarlett, I'll have to double check brand and model number but I just have a pretty standard ink jet printer. Nothing special. I will say that one attempt got blurry up in one corner so I had to do it again.

I love this idea! I wanted to do some for Christmas but I am having some troubles... how did you get them to iron on so clean!? I did what the package said and there is some of the duck cloth showing through, and some of the steam spots on the iron show (the ink doesn't transfer as well)... Please help!!! I'm running out of time and really want to do this canvas art